Snake America: Program Four
Errata: Re: Tree Of Life (USA, 2011), the costume designer, not the wardrobe coordinator, is in charge of picking out clothing. The coordinator just pushes paper. The designer and the assistant designer shop for the wardrobe, depending on the size of the production. Tree Of Life probably briefly had a shopper doing the shopping. The coordinator might shop, but they're in-office, doing purchase orders and coordinating what goes to set each day, etc. But getting the Jeans from Cherry or whoever is the costume designer's work.
Snake is a regular email (twice a week-ish) where I write about eBay auctions, videos I've come across, ephemera, errata, famous Cleveland Browns fans, portable measuring tape... Reader Jack asked for sneakers...
http://www.ebay.com/itm/251620653857 - When I saw this auction a while ago it was decided for me that these were the best original Nike sneakers that haven't yet been retroed. They're only $70 and my size and I didn't buy them*. And this is some hot trash. It looks, the original here, tasteless, awful and current, like it should be near the door at Opening Ceremony, covered in candle smell. That if it was a person, it'd do coke and listen to The Rapture (I'm showing my age...maybe Salem, but Salem are fine and a Nike listening to The Rapture is a nice mental image). But it look good: curved swoosh, hiking hooks, slant-block Nike on the heel counter make up for the double-bubble heel. It's a cross between the Olivia Newton John Reebok Freestyle and the Disco Nike. You can see in Tom Sachs' Mars Nike--maybe the best new joint Nike's put out since the Bush administration--the entire aesthetic. What a shoe! One Snow Waffle for $70 and another for $1,000. But facts are a bitch and this shoe--the Nike Snow Waffle--was indeed retroed a while ago. I remember I used to visit New York there was a giant two-block long deli on Houston St., near where the Dunkies is now. In 2001, when everyone was wearing light-denim Diesel Fankers and Nike Prestos, there wasn't much East of A. The bodega/deli had rows of refrigerators, like library stacks, and one shelf was all Tab sodas. I had never seen neither the Prestos nor Tabs in person before. You kind of can't buy Tab--the first diet soda--anymore in Manhattan below 14th, except maybe a Smiler's or Lenny's. Atlas Cafe was the first bakery in the city with vegan treats, which seems quaint right now, but wasn't then. It's called Anthony Cafe, the menu's shorter and the atlas globe is still up there on the brick outside, but above the awning and almost out of sight. These shoes aren't the best un-retroed Nikes--they have been. And if they hadn't been retroed, they still wouldn't get that title. Just because they're old, doesn't mean they're great. Tab soda sucks, and so did the cookies at Atlas, but I still remember them when I'm nearby.
"Yeah, I was in school on the 80s. Since 1980, to be exact. I refused to get the Jordan Is in 85, I thought they looked like clown shoes, and the hip thing was still soccer cleats back then pretty much. Still wore Nikes though. I barely missed the IIIs. Air Jordan fever really caught on around 1989 like these other cats said. There were only about 10 people in a whole high school of about 3500 wearing IV Jordans, me (Bulls colorway), my homies ill Cesar (white/cement), Dopefiend Dave (military blue), and Patrick (blue also) included. " (Rest in pain)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/280951722970 - I have unquestioned faith in eBay as an accurate marketplace, long-term at least, for most low-culture items. This is despite the site's drift away from buyer-seller transparency. Options like searching by bidder, thumbing through months-old auctions or years-old feedback aren't available anymore. But it's still a place where more or less everything is on sale forever at a range of prices that converge at the mean. This is super vague, true: in the long run, we'll be dead and this LL Bean gym bag will still be on Dutch auction for $385, but the important stuff will more or less get to people who want it (like my dentist friend who owns 14 WarZone tank undershirts) and will have a vague price. But in the short run, you can buy everything: wardrobes--of clothing and the actual furniture--plates that came wrapped in a diaper, wristwatches, winter parkas (I have three of the same one), carpets, replacement phone chargers, old newspapers (single or in a bundle), tickets, magazine subscriptions, rings, musical instruments and accessories, a seam ripper*, plastics, Xbox boxes without the Xbox for like $10,000, etc. As my (still nascent, still basic) knowledge of stuff out there has grown, I'm pleasantly surprised that everything new to me is old to eBay. But what about planters? You can't really find any good ones on the machine. Just Tackett ones I think, for a lot of money. I mean, these pink ones are cool, kind of. And there are a bunch more for sale but they don't really look special or anything. Oh well.
http://www.spacemen3.co.uk/pages/articles/conflict48.htm - I am not into the junkie aesthetic, really, but I'm man enough to admit when someone is so good at a thing that's out of my wheelhouse that I question whether I've been wrong from the get-go and every day since.
Gerard: Are you familiar with the straight-edge movement?
Sonic Boom: No.
Gerard: Well, straight-edge is like a total anti-drug thing, whereas bent-edge is the other way around, like grab ‘em whenever they’re around.
Sonic Boom: Why are you telling me this.
Should I have done everything different? That's really the vibe you get reading up on Spacemen. Isn't that sort of success the goal with any way of life? I am certainly trying. I like the idea of a CPA one day quitting his job to spend day sat Kinokinuya reading old magazines, getting auction pings and buying old watch caps and Coca Cola shirts**. He might be better off on dope.
Thanks, as always for reading. Hate mail, requests, corrections, tips, ponytails can be sent to me via mail or fax (fax me for my fax number). Thank you again for your time.
Snake
* I have enough trash
** all day is such a strong set of words...